Arkansas, Hot Springs: We Saw Harry Potter

Even though we were going to be spending a couple of days in Hot Springs, Arkansas, we first spent the day in Little Rock, Arkansas, after our flight arrived there from St. Louis, Missouri. We arrived at Little Rock International Airport just after 1:00pm from an uneventful flight. We actually both slept during the entire flight, because we were exhausted from the previous five days in Missouri, which included Kansas City as well as St. Louis.

Kyle's sister (Kelli) and his niece (Samantha) had come to Hot Springs from Fayetteville, Arkansas, where they lived. Kyle's aunt (Jeane) had also come into town from Austin, Texas, where she lived. Kyle's mum (Judy) brought all of them and Kyle's MeeMaw (Jenny) to Little Rock, where Kyle's stepdad (Marc) had been spending time, getting ready to start a new job. Since Hot Springs was only an hour away from Little Rock, it was a convenient travel hub for us and it was also easy for all of those people that we just mentioned to come and meet us when we arrived. Why were there so many people? Well, it wasn't just to meet us when we arrived, but for all of us to see the new Harry Potter movie together, the fifth film in the series.

The pizza was good and the place was really casual, with great service, but guess what?

Due to the nature of Kyle's family, they hadn't left Hot Springs when our flight arrived, so we offered to go and purchase movie tickets for everyone whilst they were heading into town. We wanted to buy all of the tickets in advance in order to save time when we got to The Rave movie theatre, which was where we decided to see the film. The Rave was a newer cinema on Colonel Glenn Road and had 18 screens, all of them very large. The sound and quality of projections there was brilliant, and we thought it would be better to see the film in Little Rock than it would have been to see it in Hot Springs, where the movie theatres were smaller and the quality was not as good.

We had some time to kill before the movie and before everyone else arrived, so we went for lunch at a place called Jason's Deli. We shared a tuna mayonnaise sandwich and some potato chips (that's the same as crisps for the British people reading this, and you would have learned that already if you had read the journal entry before this one). The plate of food they served was huge and the sandwich was actually equal to about two sandwiches, so it was a good thing we shared the meal. We were still suffering from all of the food and beer that we consumed in St. Louis, Missouri, with our friends, Karen and Dave, over the weekend before arriving in Little Rock.

The food at Jason's Deli was okay, but the place was a mess. Many of the tables had customers' plates and messes still on them, so we had trouble even finding some place to sit down. The staff were walking around the place but not really doing anything; what we really wanted to do was to tell them that they should clean the place up so it would look better for future customers walking through the door. We were glad to finish the meal and head to the cinema afterwards.

"Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" was a great film that we all enjoyed. Well, everyone enjoyed it except for Jenny, who had trouble concentrating on the film due to her Alzheimer's. Luckily, though, she made it through the entire film without making a big fuss and wanting to leave, which was really positive. We were worried that she might have to leave in the middle of the film, causing either or both of Judy and Jeane to have to leave the movie theatre to take her home or somewhere else. Kelli and Samantha had already seen the film, but they enjoyed it a second time. We thought that Imelda Staunton was hilarious in her performance as Dolores Umbridge.

When the film was finished, we drove to Denny's, which was located a bit more north up the interstate and just off the next exit. Jenny was hungry, so we stopped there to get her something to eat. We didn't eat, because we had already eaten at Jason's Deli, and Kelli was not hungry, but everyone else had a little bit of food. We did enjoy some chocolate milks while we waited for everyone else to finish their meal.

Everyone headed back to Hot Springs after the meal, except for Marc; as mentioned above, he was starting a new job in Little Rock the next day. It was dark by the time we left Little Rock and it was getting rather late. Kelli and Samantha rode with us in Judy's car, which she very kindly had let us borrow whenever we were in Hot Springs staying with her and Marc. We had a nice chat during the hour drive back to Hot Springs and we all decided to go for pizza once we arrived there.

Rocky's Pizza Corner was located on Central Avenue, about halfway between the large Wal-Mart Supercenter and the historic downtown part of the city. For those of you reading this, who know Hot Springs, it was actually across the road from Oaklawn Racetrack, where the horseraces take place. The pizza was good and the place was really casual, with great service, but guess what? We ate way too much again...

Once we returned to Judy's and Marc's house, everyone there was asleep. The four of us decided to try and finish watching the film "Happily N'Ever After" with Samantha, because we had tried to watch the film a couple of times before and we both kept falling asleep. It wasn't necessarily because the film was really boring - well, maybe a little bit - but because we were tired from many early starts and late evenings. We finally made it through the end of the film, though; at least, we let it play all the way through. Dan was conscious until the end credits but Kyle gave up with 20 minutes to spare and just napped until the credits came up on the screen. Samantha rolled her eyes at her uncle at that point.

The next morning, we ate some leftover biscuits (these are kind of like salty, flaky scones for the British people reading this) with white gravy and sausage pieces poured over the top, from the breakfast restaurant chain, IHOP. The food was not very good, there were lumps of gristle in the sausage pieces and that type of food just didn't taste good re-heated in the microwave. The biscuits and gravy also had tons of salt added to it, which we could taste and thought was disgusting.

We offered to buy Kelli a coffee from Starbucks so she wouldn't have to make a fresh pot of coffee at Judy's and Marc's house, since they had run out already that morning. So we sent Judy and Jeane to Starbucks to get us coffees and one for Kelli, a task that they gladly and very kindly accepted. Soon after, we enjoyed some iced coffees and Kelli enjoyed a warm one. Once we had a coffee fix, we were ready for some exercise in the form of racquetball.

If you have read any of the previous two Hot Springs journals, you will know that we have found fun in playing the sport of racquetball with Kyle's mum and also Marc, occasionally. Since Marc was in Little Rock, he was not able to play racquetball that day, but Judy was keen. Jeane wanted to lay out at the outdoor swimming pool at Hot Springs Health and Fitness Center, where we were going to play racquetball, and Dan decided that he would rather do that instead of play. So, Dan joined Jeane at the pool and Kyle and Judy played several games of ball.

It was hot and sunny outside and Dan swam some laps, alternating that with laying in the warm sun; Jeane just enjoyed working on her tan outside, and she hopped into the pool to cool off every once in a while. Inside, sweat was pouring off Kyle's and Judy's bodies, even in the cool air conditioning that was blowing into the racquetball courts; this was because they were giving it their all whilst playing the game. After warming up, they ended up playing 7 games of racquetball, which took just over two hours.

The final game count was 4-3, with Kyle winning the 4 games that time. Since Judy beat him the last time they played singles, it was a nice change of hands for the victories. Hopefully, playing racquetball can be incorporated into Kyle's visits every time he returns to the United States to see his family; he and Judy were surprised that they hadn't played racquetball during any of the previous times that he had been home.

You may be wondering where Kelli and Samantha had gone to for the afternoon whilst racquetball was played and tans were being worked on. The two females had gone to Magic Springs and Crystal Falls amusement park, which was located next to the historic downtown area of Hot Springs; they had annual passes and wanted to try and make the most of them. After we finished at the gym with Judy and Jeane, we decided to take time out to work on the travel journal that we were so far behind on at the time (and still are, unfortunately!).

San Francisco Bread Company was our local haunt in Hot Springs because they offered free wireless internet for customers and they had the best sweet ice tea of all of the coffee shops we had visited in the United States over the past month, since we had arrived from China. The iced tea was not only delicious, but there were huge vats of it and customers could receive free refills as long as they were in the cafe.

We ended up spending several hours working on the journal, but we finally left (when San Francisco Bread Company closed) and returned to Judy's and Marc's house. Jeane was asleep but Kelli, Samantha and Judy were all awake. Judy had fixed Boca cheeseburgers for everyone, which were really tasty veggie burgers. While everyone ate, we watched the movie "Bridge to Terabithia", which was sad and not nearly as magical of a film as the trailer made it out to be. Everyone enjoyed it, though, but we all agreed that you needed some tissues if you were going to watch the film.

This trip to Hot Springs was a short one, we were just in between a couple of trips that we had planned whilst we were in the United States; therefore, we had to pack our things for our next journey the following morning. The first trip had been a long one, which included a road trip across Arkansas and into Springfield, Missouri, with our friend Sophia, from London. We immediately flew to Kansas City, Missouri, when Sophia left Arkansas to return to London, and then we had driven from Kansas City to St. Louis, Missouri, before returning to Little Rock and Hot Springs for this trip.

The next trip would find us travelling to New York City to see a couple of friends of ours from London, Olivia and Laurie (her boyfriend), and also some other friends whom we had not seen yet in the United States, since we had arrived - Brady, Julia, Michelle and Ralph. After New York City, we would then travel to Washington D.C. to see Erin and a friend of Dan's from his university days at Greenwich University - Sally. The final leg of that trip would be Nashville, Tennessee, to see Kyle's cousins, Kimberly and Carmen, and Carmen's new 5-1/2 month old baby boy, Tristan.

Once we were packed and ready to go, Judy and Jeane took us to the airport. On the way, we stopped for lunch at a place called Brown's Country Restaurant, which claimed to have the longest food buffet in either Arkansas or the United States. They were probably not far off with that claim, as the buffet was double-sided and about 100 feet long in total. We ate a lot of food since it was an all-you-can-eat buffet and because the food was really scrumptious. Once we finished our meals, we were taken to the airport to catch our flight to Chicago O'Hare Airport, where we would be connecting to New York John F. Kennedy Airport. Our flights were timed so that we would arrive at the airport at the same time as Olivia and Laurie, meaning that we could head into Manhattan with them, sharing a cab.